UMERKOT: People from all walks of life visited the bereaved family of the alleged custodial killing victim, Dr Shah Nawaz Kunbhar, and supported their call for a fair and transparent investigation into the case and exemplary punishment to all policemen involved in the murder.

Dr Kunbhar was booked in a blasphemy case on Wednesday (Sept 18) and taken into ‘protective custody’ by local police to save him from mob lynching in Umerkot district. Later, police had taken him to Mirpurkhas but the next day he was shot dead by police in, what they later declared, “an encounter”. The body was handed over to his heirs but a mob emerged again and desecrated and torched it.

A large number of people, including members of various nationalist groups, lawyers and civil society activists, on Sunday visited the bereaved family to condole the death and called it a “gruesome murder” in police custody. They expressed their sympathies and solidarity with the family and assured them of their full support in getting them justice.

They laid floral wreath and Sindhi Ajrak on his temporary grave and offered his funeral prayers in absentia.

Family demands capital punishment to policemen who killed Dr Shah Nawaz Kunbhar ‘in custody’

Speaking to the media, civil society activists demanded the formation of a joint investigation team (JIT) to ascertain facts about the whole episode. They also demanded that the entire police team involved in the “so-called encounter” should be hanged to death and their officers who failed to let the matter proceed according to law must be punished.

They condemned that Dr Kunbhar was allowed to be subjected to mob justice. His body should be exhumed, given proper bath and buried according to Islamic rites as he was a true Muslim, they said.

Mohammad Saleh Kunbhar, the victim’s father, wailing over his son’s brutal killing, told the visitors and the media that Shah Nawaz kept shouting that his social media account was hacked to post the blasphemous material but the mob of fanatics did not pay any heed.

The fanatics, he added, also tried to lynch his driver, Prem Kolhi, while he was bringing the body by car. They tried to torch the car with the body and driver but Kolhi managed to escape their wrath, Saleh Kunbhar said.

“Our women, youths and children had been under serious threat since the first mob attack as the fanatics were out to kill us,” he said, urging the authorities concerned to fulfil their duty of ensuring the protection to the life and property of citizens from these “death squads”.

Dr Kunbhar’s brothers, Babar and Advocate Junaid, told the visitors that the support being expressed by the civil society today was more needed when the mob was bent upon lynching their brother and had gone on the rampage in the entire Umerkot district.

Advocate Junaid said that before being attacked by the mob, Shah Nawaz kept defending himself by explaining that his mobile phone was misused by someone. They noted that blasphemous material was being sent to his SIMs, WhatsApp and Instagram accounts even after they were turned off. He deplored that the fanatics did not heed any of his brother’s explanations.

“Why did the police and security agencies not check the social media accounts when such material was seen and these platforms were being used to incite mob justice, violence and extremism?” they asked.

Jeay Sindh Qaumi Mahaz chairman Aslam Khairpuri and its another leader Dr Niaz Kalani, and Rawadari Tehreek leader Punhal Sario told the media that Dr Shah Nawaz Kunbhar was not given his right to be heard by a court of law. They deplored that police had saved him from mob lynching but then eliminated him in cold blood.

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Dr Kunbhar’s widow and mother demanded registration of a murder FIR case all members of the police team that killed him in their custody. They also demanded a judicial inquiry into the whole episode. “My son was a true Muslim; he was a topper in the medical university he studied in,” the mother said, and moaned that his body was not allowed to be buried in their ancestral graveyard.

Dr Kunbhar’s widow said her husband used to teach the holy Quran to young children. “How could he indulge in blasphemy?” she asked.

“We cooperated with the police when they came to arrest him; and we were satisfied that he would remain in safe custody till the matter was fairly investigated. But the police cheated us and killed him in cold blood,” she said, adding that killers of her husband must be awarded death sentence.

Published in Dawn, September 23rd, 2024